Nintendo's Wii Speak Goes Silent

Share.

Microphone peripheral on the way out.

By Jim Reilly

The Wii Speak peripheral is likely being discontinued.

Several retailers, such as Amazon and GameStop, no longer offer the microphone new online, but others still have some remaining stock available in-store. IGN reached out to Nintendo for comment on whether or not the Wii Speak mic is still being manufactured and company said it will continue supplying the mic as long as there is a demand for it.

"The Wii Speak microphone is still available at limited retail locations," a Nintendo representative told IGN. "Additional shipments can be made if consumer demand increases."

Eric Nofsinger, CEO of High-Voltage Software and creators of Conduit 2, recently told Bitmob in an interview that Nintendo told the developer not to use Wii Speak for the shooter. High-Voltage instead went with the licensed Headbanger Headset from Performance Designed Products.

"Honestly, it boils down to this: the firmware required to support the PDP headset is incompatible with Wii Speak," Nofsinger explained to IGN when asked for further clarification. "We had to decide which one device to support."

"Sadly, we knew either route was likely to tick off some of our fans. So, we chose to support the best option for gameplay. And at the end of the day, the headset peripheral is more in line with what we believe our fans and first shooter players want/expect," he added.

Wii Speak was first announced at E3 2008 in Los Angeles. The device went on sale later that year during November in North America.